Liquid–liquid phase equilibria were calculated
to investigate
the potential separations of value-added components from products
obtained by lignin depolymerization. In this study, the ability of
the group-contribution model was evaluated in the prediction of mutual
solubility and liquid–liquid phase equilibria of phenolic compounds.
The phase equilibria behaviors of quaternary systems were evaluated
by the NIST-UNIFAC model so that the predicted results were in good
agreement with the available experimental data. In sequence, the partition
coefficients of 29 lignin-derived molecules with complex and polar
functional groups were predicted by the model with good accuracy (RMSE
= 0.7424). The abilities of binary, ternary, and quaternary solvent
systems were evaluated in the counter-current chromatography (CCC)
separations of the products reported in the literature that are obtained
through lignin depolymerization processes. Based on the empirical
solvent selection criteria for CCC measurements, promising solvent
systems were found for some of the lignin products. The difficult
separations of some products in other cases can be attributed to the
very similar chemical structures of the monomers. Finally, it was
found that the NIST-UNIFAC model could qualitatively predict the solvent
systems from the Arizona series, suitable for the separation of 4-hydroxybenzoic
acid, vanillin, acetovanillone, syringaldehyde, acetosyringone, vanillic
acid, and syringic acid.